The story of Luc Verelst

The story of Luc Verelst

A formative event

In August 2008, Luc Verelst’s sister was diagnosed with endometrium cancer. Her prognosis was poor. Luc embarked on a rational and systematic search for a treatment solution, but encountered overwhelming, complex and often contradictory information – and time was of the essence. The entire process was frustrating and discouraging, and inspired him to find a way to help others struggling to find scientifically validated information about their diseases and potential treatments.

Luc Verelst, founder of the Anticancer Fund

Driven to empower patients

In 2009, Luc founded Reliable Cancer Therapies (RCT), a non-profit organisation with two goals: to share information about reliable cancer treatment methods with the general public, and to investigate new treatment options. Because every cancer patient should be able to access independent, well-documented and comprehensible information about treatment options.

“I want to empower patients to make informed medical decisions. In my opinion, human health is the most impactful investment domain.”
Luc Verelst, founder of the ACF

The search continues… in science

Besides RCT, Luc Verelst founded in 2013 a Belgian private foundation, the Anticancer Fund (ACF), which became a foundation of public utility in 2018. The ACF was created to accomplish one key goal: to discover a cure for cancer. The ACF scientists focussed their early efforts on the well-documented, scientific investigation of alternative cancer treatments not offered in mainstream clinics. The team explored the stories of exceptional survivors and exhaustively examined results from private clinics worldwide.

Succeeding where the ‘cancer industry’ fails

Throughout years of research experience, the Anticancer Fund has gained new insights in how to support progress in cancer care and offer more options to cancer patients. Patient benefits aren’t always priorities in commercial cancer drug development.

As an independent research fund, we focus on four areas where we think philanthropy money can lead to novel findings and the development of new options in cancer treatments. Today, Luc is still involved as chairman of the board, sharing his own questions and insights and pushing the team to think outside the box in their quest for evidence-based cancer treatment options.

“Our strategy moved out of non-conventional cancer care and toward filling the gaps in conventional cancer care research.”
Lydie Meheus, PhD, Managing Director at the ACF

Our current focus areas

  • Drug repurposing

    Drug repurposing, also known as drug repositioning, is a drug development strategy predicated on the reuse of existing...
  • Less common and rare cancers

    We don’t just focus on the ‘big four’ of cancer – prostate, colon, breast and lung. We also investigate new treatment...
  • Combination therapies

    It is important to investigate the impacts of drugs beyond what they can achieve alone. Using them in combination...
  • Preventing tumour recurrence

    For cancer survivors, the fight isn’t always over. Many are concerned about the possibility of recurrence, and living...

OUR PROMISE